As the spring semester starts up, I find my mind wandering back to all the things I did in the fall. Remember the fall semester? Walking up the slope without getting my face windburned off? Four months of classes and pouring money into this lovely Ivy League institution? Learning about things like neuroscience, psychology and the legal system, human development, and so on? Brutalizing your savings account and learning how to bake flourless chocolate torte, braise pork belly, poach eggs, make hollandaise sauce, butcher a deer, french ribs, and so on? Becoming a shameless fan of the blood-spatter-style plating of sauce (pictured below)? Do I remember all that? Not really. Good thing I took pictures, and we’ve got recipes coming in future posts.

We’ve already sold all the Rambling Roses tickets, so it’s time to spread the word amongst your single male friends to get their asses in gear. An evening of great food, wine, music and a cozy room full of available women? Yes, Rambling Restaurant can make your wildest dreams come true. According to Kanye West, it’s going to be ‘ONE OF THE BEST NIGHTS OF ALL TIME.’

Lone Ramblers, get your tickets here for the Thursday the 3rd or here for the Friday the 4th.

We hope to see you there…but not in the outfits like JT and Andy Samberg in the above video, okay? Best to leave a little to the imagination.

london! i’ve been here for just about a week now, and finally have some time to post. it’s been a battle against shoddy internet situations and the time suck of running full speed ahead into a towering wall of meticulously reinforced bureaucratic red tape. let’s just say that the process of setting up a business in another country is just a leeetle bit complicado. however, it’s been an exciting journey so far and don’t worry, we’ve been keeping our bellies full of delicious stuff along the way.

indulge me in a quick aside about what has NOT been delicious – my final meal before touching down in londontown. i made sure to have a good last meal in the U.S. of A., (by which i mean several alcoholic beverages in the international terminal at logan airport) but my meal over the atlantic ocean was shocking in its level of inedibility. i know, i know, who expects airplane food to be good? what was i thinking? well, i’ve actually had really good food on international flights recently (tortellini on a united flight to rome comes to mind) and i obviously had some unrealistically high expectations. they were crushed to sad little pieces when i got this plate of something-sort-of-resembling-risotto-if-it-were-meant-to-be-consumed-by-humans:

it tasted like someone had carefully minced a large cardboard box full of styrofoam packing peanuts and placed them in the microwave for several hours until soft enough to be chewed and swallowed and then coated the resulting turds with a liberal sprinkling of dirt and salt. virgin atlantic, i had such high hopes for you. however, i very much appreciate the cute little gift packages with well-designed socks and eye masks and toothbrushes all fitting into one adorable little pouch. so i forgive you. just don’t disappoint me again next time.

up next: all the good things we’ve had to eat in london! in case you’re wondering, the next post involved a meal where something caught on fire. EXCITING!

the seeeeesters are reunited! irene and i are hanging out in nyc and planning a food tour for the day. first stop – union square greenmarket. also on the agenda – korean fried chicken, soup dumplings, hole-in-the-wall indian food takeout storefronts, cupcakes, falafel, turkish food, and more. anyone who ever said there were three meals in a day has never met the li sisters. we will be joined by our cousin lexi, who shares our shiang genes and therefore also a voracious appetite. this is some serious family styles.

irene and i are preparing to go out while eating beer cheese from ithaca and smoked salmon. i wondered aloud as to whether we’d need to save room in our stomachs for our daylong food tour. quote from irene, epitomizing one of the many reasons i love the girl:

3. anthony bourdain is coming to the mission! woohoo! i’m not sure how i feel about the accompanying photo, but i am sure he’d be a fucking blast to party with, and rip into some serious meat (although not from industrially processed pigs). i’ll leave the warthog poop chutes to tony, though.

okay. back to googling sexy high school boys. it’s for work, i promise.

in case i can’t make it to the competition, i’m happy knowing i had one of the best grilled cheeses of my life last night: kwame’s slow roasted short rib and cave-aged gruyere masterpiece. as clayton said, it was a serious mouthful of oral orgasm. more on kwame’s four courses of amazing later, plane taking off (we were downed with a medical emergency in the industrial wasteland of lubbock, tx), but i’ll give you some food porn to enjoy for now…